


The First Day

by SkekLa



Series: A thousand years have passed [1]
Category: The Dark Crystal (1982)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Being the half of a whole sucks, Chaos, Confusion, Other, urskek division
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 14:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21055586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkekLa/pseuds/SkekLa
Summary: The starting point on a small colection of stories I wrote some fair time ago, featuring my skeksis fan-character (skekLa the Illustrator)At this one, we get a sight of what the division might have felt when experienced through a skeksis' eyes.





	The First Day

**Author's Note:**

> Written back at 2016 ^^  
Uploading it here after "forever" XD

In the beggining, everything was noise.

A screeching, deafening noise.

Then, there was a series of thuds; a dry, cruel sound of things landing harshly on the floor around the chamber.

The screeching stopped.

The light was blinding.

She strived to open here eyes and see, focus, understand what had happened...

Suddenly, the realization came that she did not know where she was...

Or even WHO she was.

Faltering lights and colors danced before her dazzled sight.

She frowned and imitated the noises she had heard, screeching, grabbing at her head with trembling hands, struggling with the painful sensation of having somehow died and returned to life all at the same time.

Choking on air that felt thick and bitter for her lungs, she mouthed, bent, and nearly fell.

Her legs were no good.

They weren’t holding her upright.

Stumbling forth as her arms flung seeking for support, she emmitted a muffled yelp, and then made contact with something.

Or more likely, collided with it with a hoarse “UGH!”

Her quivering fingers, however, welcomed the warm, leathery sensation of the object as she grasped from it, ballancing her unstable weight and again blinking rapidly, pressing her eyelids together and then opening them wide with furious determination to SEE.

And she saw.

The impact of the images striking at her bedazzled concsiousness was rather overwhelming.

The thing she held on to -for sake of remaining on her feet - was actually something alive.

It stared at her.

She had never seen anything like it.

It had a mixture of violet and flesh colors, it’s skin was smooth yet cracked by a texture simmilar to that of reptile scales.  
Shaking, the creature seemed to be repelled by her contact, but it did not attack. An uncomfortable sensation ran through her...and yet, she didn't let go, staggering to remain on her feet.

There was a luscious, bristly cloak of iridiscent blackish feathers covering it’s back and shoulders, and it gazed upon her with surprised, almost bewildered green eyes set on an angular, sharp head which was crowned by a thick dark mane and ended on a curved beak.

-“ Hmmmmmm!”

When It made that sound, her hands spontaneously cringed and she finally released her hold. She ought to draw back.

Perhaps IT was angry at her.

Perhaps it was wild.

There was a feel of hostility reaching through the stale air, and other noises –growling, gurgling, squawking- started to echo all around the place.

When the new sounds came, she instinctively regained hold on the figure before her.

It snarled but did not make any evident aggression signs beyond that, and even feeling an instinctive urge to shove away and flee, she tried to smile at it, show it she meant no harm, tell it she was only scared...

Trying to speak seemed now unquestionable. Words didn’t cooperate, they whirled within her mind, confuse, obscured, as if they had been said and thaught to her in a language which now was unfathomable to her comprehension.

-“Hmmmmmm” said the creature again, narrowing it’s eyes, curving leathery lips behind it’s sharp beak, exposing the pointed and white tips of what seemed to be carnivorous fangs within it’s muzzle. Was it a growl? 

She took the gesture as a smile, tilted her head in dubious manner,readying herself to fight if needed be, then swiftly bobbed as to test her asumption.

The creature kept baring teeth, yet it also bobbed back at her.

It could understand her.

Now that was a great advance!

As her sight and her thoughts slowly settled, she examined two long, pasty white taloned hands she kept seeing before her, and discovered they were hers.

It was shocking: she did not remember having had such hands...

Moving the spindly white fingers right in front of her face, she attempted to take in the new discovery: they were her own hands indeed.

Alien.

Unkown.

But why?...How?...

How had her hands been,before?...

And Before what???

She stood there, holding to the violet creature with one hand, and staring stupidly at the palm of the other, until many other things entered her visual field , their eerie and raspy noises gained her attention again, and she could no longer ignore them or feel safe beside the one she held to.

-“ Skraaaaawk!”-

A particularly big blue-and-yellow Thing, which had hands just like hers and like-now she noticed- the violet one, shook and straightened, rising four taloned limbs to the air in a defiant pose.

It held in one of it’s hands a strange “stick”, topped with a crystal point, which shimmered ominously.

It’s mane bristled, immaculate white, as it peered about with hungry, pale eyes which shone like gems. If gems could have such murderous glint.

Right behind it, a radiant, colossal transllucent crystal seemed to float, hanging over a pit which erupted with a white smoke overflow.

A familiar yet unfamiliar sight...

The Big One roared once again, widening it’s terrible eyes and looking at the others with stern expression, it’s hands still threateningly rose above its head.

That one frightened her.

The violet one gazed tensely back at her , nervously shifting weight from one foot to the other and lashing their tail, then gave another small mewling whimper.

-“Hmmmmmm”

Soon enough, many others, who now she began to understand were her own kind, roared and stood, grunting, squeaking, murmuring with the evidence of a bewildered, disconcerted amazement, equal to what she had herself felt.

Many eyes glistened with fury, beaks began to clack in aggressive strikes, and in a flurry of vibrant colors and feathers, they all helped each other stand, not without aiming some snapping bites and offended swats at each other.

She swallowed a lump within her throat.

They were rather many...

Some seemed “harmless enough”- more or less- like the violet one.  
At least it had not struck her. Or bite her. 

But among the others, most looked quite more wrathful and shoved, hissed and clawed at each other, ready to begin a fight...

That worried her...but she could not escape so many. Nor offer a worthy fight.

Not when she could only- barely, stand straight.

A big, greenish-purple one lunged forth towards something, screeching with rage...and only then, she noticed the DIFFERENT creatures scattered about, standing either alone or in small groups, to the other side of the hovering Crystal.

They looked as befuddled as “they” were, all creamy-flesh colored, all sporting long, soft manes, all simmilar to each other.

They veered and stared at everything with dark, deep eyes, and produced small astonished sounds within their throats

-“Ohmmmmm?...”

They seemed passive and unharmful...

And yet---

She shuddered and a terrible mix of anger and sorrow rushed through her veins.

She did not know HOW she knew it, or WHAT exactly it was, but she somehow DID KNOW those creatures had hated “them”

She KNEW that, SOMEHOW, those who seemed so peaceful and wonder-stricken, had wanted to destroy them!

A guttural growl forced it’s way out her throat and she felt the long, curved talons on her hands unsheathe to their full length, readying a fatal blow.

She had not known she could do that, and for a brief dumbstricken second, the surprise of having felt such odd new thing on her fingers stopped her from attempting an attack.

-“HMMMMMMMmmm”

The Violet one.

She felt him stir again–she still had one hand on it’s flank, and assumed she had pierced him with her talons- but in fact she had not. IT was moving bizarrely. There was aggression in his intent, yet also something else. It’s green eyes rolled from her and forth,as it shook nervously,one of it’s hands gesturing towards that big Purple-green one, who had managed to charge forth and was viciously striking at the Different One .

She understood the Violet one meant something, wanted her to look at it.

And she did.

As the “One like her” wrapped sinewy and terribly strong fingers around the Different One’s thin throat, and squeezed until the meek-looking creature failed and cumpled on the floor in a hapless knot of limbs, without defending itself, ANOTHER thing happened nearby.

One of “Them”, unexplainably, was choking.

It waved it’s upper hands in desperate flailing, gagging and spitting as it’s two other hands sought it’s own throat as if it were in horrible pain...yet noone was attacking it.

It convulsed, shook, and finally fell, lifeless.

She observed both deaths with wide eyes, as more snorting and snarling sounds rumbled across the place and random fights erupted everywhere.

-“HmmmmMMmm?”

The Violet one stared at her, inquisitively.

She could not understand what It wanted, and again tilted her head to one side to signal her confusion, hoping it would not change it's mind and attack her all of the sudden.

There was a new screech and a cackle, and a roaring yellow-and-violet one leapt through the air with enviable synchrony of limbs, landing with a loud “thump” upon another “Different One”.

It did offer mild resistance, in opposition to the previous one which had died without lifting a finger in self-defense.

This one rose it’s hands at the “One like her” and tried to pry it’s striking talons away from it’s vulnerable body.

To no avail.

The “One of Them” aimed a violent push with all four hands at the Different One who had dared to struggle, and It fell into the pit from where a misty, threading vapor rose, lapping the base of the immense foating crystal.

The “One like her” rose all four hands in victory as it cackled with what she knew was laughter.

Suddenly, as a spiral of flame swallowed the Different One who had fallen down the pit, fire ablazed also up there, born from nothing, sprouting like furious yellow explosions of energy as the “One like her”, still rising it’s arms in a cheer, squealed horribly and was swiftly devoured by the small inferno, and reduced to ashes.  
Many others pointed and burst into cawing laughter at the sight, tho she only managed to give out a screechy noise of disgust. There was something utterly wrong going on...it escaped her comprehension and still she could feel it dawning within her...

Another “Hmmmmmmm” charged with intentionality, and she suddenly KNEW what the Violet one had meant.

It now seemed to attempt to speak, pointing at the ashen remains which still feebly rippled with the dying licks of spontaneous fire.

-“ Squawrk, squaack...Graawk...hmmmmmmm...hmmmm???”-

It was only noise, only jittery babble, no intelligible word had came from it’s beak, nevertheless she had SEEN, and now understood.

Every time one of the Different Ones was attacked and died, one of THEM suffered an equal fate!

The striking, impossible idea that somehow they were linked to those Different Ones in a deep , unfathomable manner, so closely and so DANGEROUSLY, seeped slowly through her mind in all it's horror.

The Violet one whimpered again, widening it’s eyes.

About seven more of Them were paying attention to it’s urgent squawking, now.

-“ Hmmm, HMMMM, Squaack, squawrk!..”

ONE word suddenly appeared within her thoughts.

“STOP”

THAT was it!

The Violet one wanted THEM all to STOP attacking. Of course...in fear that---

Comprehension hit her like a hammer, shaking her innermost fibers.

IF “They” continued to attack, they would bring death to all!

When Differet Ones died, also THEY died!

Thesmall group where she was had understood, and they had to STOP IT.

All seven attendants- eyes filled with a light of desperate, sudden comprehension- ran and scattered, trying to somehow communicate, waving taloned hands, gesturing, skipping from one foot to the other in vehement dance as they attempted to spread the news.They would even swat and bite at the most violent ones, attempting to stop them, at times, ironically starting new fights through it. 

The Violet one ran and executed it’s waves, swats and noises to a tall blue-and-yellow one which responded with a hard backhand--yet moments later seemed to stand still and stare in doubt, ceasing to strike.

She stood still for a moment,in dumbstruck manner,watching what the Violet one and her small group did, then ran to do the same as the rest.

After dodging many claws and fangs during tense and painfully long moments which seemed eternal, the fighting subdued, and all seemeed to strickenly realize what was happening.

A lean and rather small greenish-and-brown one who had been on "her group" even dared to strike one of his talons across it’s own arm and sought about with it’s sight as to point at a bleeding Different one which showed a spontaneous identical wound.

That was apparently what all the rest needed to fully understand.

The Different Ones, however, looked, smelt, and Iradiated with SOMETHING they could not stand.

Those creatures felt infuriatingly kindred in an eerie sense, and yet, were “ENEMIES” and had to go.

Screeching ragefully and roaring to the top of their lungs, THEY stood in defense of the place they had seemingly self-claimed as theirs: the place where they had been “born”.  
All aggression,claws and teeth, bristled feathers and mad eyes, they drove their enemy away.

The Different Ones retreated, bunched up together, and left without looking back.

An articulate voice resounded through the pungent air and a new strange sort of creature- low in stature, clad in red, with just one eye and spiraled horns on the sides of it’s head- came walking towards them and boldly addressed at the Big one who seemed to have taken charge, the one with the white long mane and the terrible eyes.

The more she listened, the more she started to remember...The new creature spoke rapidly, passionately, and the ellusive meaning of the words, in a language she knew wasn’t hers but she had probably learnt, began to rain upon her like an endless thread of mental images, associations, sounds.

She truly comprehended one entire phrase though not what it meant.

-“ Do you not wish to be whole again?...”demanded the creature in red ,vehemently, daringly, as the Big One had it’s eyes fixed upon it, piercing it with an ice cold gaze of indignant fury.

The Big One straightened in all it’s might, the stick with the crystal tip held high on it’s right frontal hand, and her heart shrunk with awe-filled fear.

The thick, pure- white mane fluttered as it stood mightily, facing the stubby creature in red, and a voice, croaking, powerful, terrifying, erupted from it’s sharp beak:

-“NEHVEEERRRR!!!!”

Whirling on it’s heels, the Big One wielded the stick with the crystal tip as if it were a weapon, and struck a blow upon the immense floating Crystal which hung passively over the misty shaft of fire.

When the blow landed, the most ear-splitting shriek she had ever heard rumbled out from the crystal, as if it were a live thing that had been wounded.  
Reverberating through the walls, the power of the noise was enough to make them all bend in pain, covering their ears in suffering, shaking and shrieking in agony on cacophonous reprise to the cry of the Crystal.  
Her head seemed to explode.

Her ears, her eyes, even her heart hurt, every fiber within her body seemed to be suffering an excruciating torment.  
The noise seemed to also become a searing light which seeped through her flesh, scorching, piercing like a thousand needles.

She lost all sense of everything around her, and ran.

There were vibrations coming from the ground, she could feel them on the sole of her feet as she skipped and stumbled, trying to escape the pain and the terrible noise, yet running in circles, for she felt she must not abandon the place. Something big was happening.  
Many blurred, colorful forms past her by in crazed escape, their footfalls scrabbling and slipping among the rubble, sometimes bumping against her, though she could not tell apart any of the ones who she had been close to,amidst this terrible, overwhelming agony.

Soon the shrill thundering of the crystal blinded her to any other sight or sound, all she had left within her was a helpless will to flee.

Bewildered and panicked, she dashed forth, determined to escape somewhere, anywhere...  
Then, the monstruous noise abruptly disappeared, as suddenly as it had begun.  
Her vision cleared. Everything was confusion.

A tiny creature barely half of her size appeared before her, with a white mane and a small face.She vaguely remembered simmilar small creatures, from "before", some-when.  
This little thing was running, and it dashed past her as she still skidded on the pebbled floor, looking back at it with curiosity while attempting to put a halt to her frenzied escape.

Then,there was a THUMP, and again, pain.

At first, it was only beating on her face, and her chest.

Then, it exploded on her right leg, making her yelp in agony.  
Running while looking backwards,she had unwarily crashed hard onto something in front of her.  
Now she fell, tangled with the long limbs of another.

Scrabbling uselessly on the ground, as rocks scraped her skin and something which felt like two extra arms flailed convulsely over her shoulders, she grabbed at her thigh.

Sticky, warm, moist.

Dark red.

She was bleeding.

The pain was terrible.

Before her, the Big One was standing up with deliberate, rageful slowlyness- the crystal tipped stick on it’s hand stained and dripping with her own blood.

Then she understood she must have collided with Them, and somehow the stick had came to hit her.

Snarling and yelping in twined warning and fear, she dragged herself across the floor, snapping her beak and trying to pose a defensive stance, seeing as The Big One-a bloodcurling growl erupting from it’s throat- bared teeth at her, rising it’s weapon overhead with clear intention of bringing it down on her with full force.

A feeble cry, a gasp, and a pitter-patter: Another tiny creature, this one dark-haired, ran away , quickly aiming towards an opening through which a patch of a strangely reddened sky could be seen.

The Big One hissed and chased after it, forgetting about her so suddenly that it took her some awestricken seconds to try and get up to put fair distance from such danger. It had all happened too fast---

Dragging her hurt leg behind her, she fell some three or four times before she could reach a safer place between some rocks which would shield her well enough.

There she sat and inspected the damage, wincing with stinging throbs that ran through her like electric discharges.  
Pain and anger filled her. Curse the Big One.  
Her leg was all torn, shredded flesh.  
The wound ran from her hip down to her inner thigh, oozing with her oily vital fluid, which looked particularly shocking in contrast to her pasty-white skin.  
Moaning, she pressed it with her hands, as if she had the ingenuous intention of somehow fitting everything back into place and magically stop the bleeding.

Dizzyness started to take her, and she had to lay down and rest her head upon the ground.

Snorting with sudden defeat and tiredness, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to rest.

Suddenly, who-knew-how-long after that, she felt a merciless pressure over her wound, and snapped awake.  
Someone was atttacking her!  
She growled, posing with a threatening stance again,even if still on the floor: her eyes wide and crazed, talons unsheated at full length curling over the ground, and her teeth bare in a grimace which said “Don't touch me”

Then, she saw what the painful pressure was: There were some of THEM , the Ones like Her- standing by her side.

They were few, only three actually.  
The Green-brown one who had clawed it’s own arm earlier,that one was doing something to her leg, but there were also other two: a light-blue and green one with beautiful eyes and a long, thick brown mane, making flaily -soothing?- gestures with it’s hands, and also the Violet one, the one who she had seen first, mewling as he stared down at her with what could have been a worried expression.

Fixing her eyes upon whatever the Green-Brown one was doing, she continued to growl and tensely pull back, ready to strike at it if she had to.  
Then she saw it was not actually harming her, but wrapping her torn leg and tying it tightly with a piece of a soft material.  
Her growling died down and she felt herself deflate in relief.  
This was not an attack. It was help.

Looking at the thing bound to her leg, she could remember what it was: fabric.

Fabric, as...in "robes".

She then also remembered what robes were, and a misplaced pang of shame ran through her.  
Nude.  
They were all nude, and also she was.  
Drawing her legs tightly against her chest, she formed a defensive ball. Then she acknowledged she had a long, sinewy tail just like the rest did, and wrapped it around her body to preserve her dignity.

The bleeding of her leg had stopped, or at least had majorly diminished.

She rose her head and dared to stare at the Green-brown one who had fixed her, not certain if she ought to thank for it, ignoring why it had helped her.

It nodded in affirmation, then tilted it’s head, studying her with attention.

-“No more bleed---.”-  
The voice was croaky, hissy, yet understandable, and she observed with rapt fascination at the Green-brown one, the “fixer”, as he said those words.

THEY could speak?...

Could SHE do it?...

Her beak gaped open, and she warbled a mix of strange squawky noises.

Frowing, she focused on what she wanted to express, and then it came out :

-“Hurts...”

It had been shrill, clumsy, but it WAS a word!...

The “Fixer” nodded again, frowning.

-“ Found you”-

The new words were accompanied with a punctuating gesture of it’s taloned hand, towards the Violet one, who produced their particular whimpery noise again, and also made a recognition head bow, grinning as it’s green eyes narrowed .

She rose her eyebrows and looked intensely at that one.

-“Thanks”-

The other three hunched and sat beside her for a moment,seemingly curious, and she actually welcomed their closeness.

-“Careful”- Said the light-blue one with the beautiful eyes, as it gestured vehemently with it’s elegant head at a place she could not precise.

Following it’s gesture, she rose her head and spotted the rest of Them.

They were all gathered, squawking and murmuring lowly,some using words, others just crowing or screeching. The Big One was in the center of their mass, apparently talking to them.

-“ Yes."- She replied- "Dangerous?”- referring to the Big One, making a descriptive hand shape which said “BIG”

The Light blue one nodded -“ANGRY. We all angry. But He, most.”-

So, that one was particularly angry. She was too, although the pain and confusion had forced her rage to remain in a second place between her sensations and emotions.

-“ What now?”- She clumsily ventured.

The violet one replied this time, it’s voice nasal and purring:

-“ Hmmmmm...now, wait. So no more fight happens. Then, come. Later. Hmm?”-

She thought the Violet one was right, she needed to wait until the moods settled.

Whatever reason the Big One had to be angry at her, they would possibly be due to the simple fact that she had collided with “Him” and knocked ”Him” down amidst the chaotic fighting.

That would have to pass.

“He” would easily forget about that, wouldn’t He?

The Greenish-brown one, the one who had fixed her, pressed a taloned hand onto it’s own chest, and pronounced carefully –“TEK. SkekTek.”  
It looked at her as if it expected a response, and she stood in blank amazement at the new word.

-“ What?...What is, Tek, SkekTek?”-She finally rasped along with a head tilt, to show it she did not recognize the meaning of that, even though the sound of it did stir a fragment of a memory somewhere in the back of her mind.  
-“ Name. I. I am SssskekTek.”- Replied the “fixer”, again touching it’s own chest with vehement expression.

The Light-blue one with the beautiful eyes made a strange flowy gesture with it’s hand and pointed at itself –“ I am SkekEkt.”-

And gave a small giggly noise which brought a feeble smile to her awestricken face.

NAMES! Things had names-now she remembered, how could she forget that!- words were names for all existent things...and they'd of course have their own, too!...tho how was she called?---she struggled with foggy shards of memories, forcing them to cooperate, to reconnect,to work for her--

The violet one, the first she had met, laid a hand on it’s own chest and mewled -“Hmmm...I am SkekSil”

She felt somehow compelled to repeat that last part of the name -“Sil”...- 

Somehow she felt attached to that individual, probably because that one was the first she had seen, and intuited she would pronounce that name again, many times: she wanted to get used to it’s sound.

The Violet one, 'Sil, Essayed a small gesture towards her.

-“ Hmmm...YOU?..”-

She frowned.

She did not know HOW or when it had happened, yet she had remembered. 

-“ La...I am SkekLa...”

**Author's Note:**

> Please keep in mind that these fanfictions are meant to take place in an Alternate Universe where certain things might differ from canon. Albeit, this is heavily based off the classic Dark Crystal movie (1982) and some of the canon and characterisations might sound off to anyone who´s not watched the movie (given how certain things were retconned and/or changed by the recent Netflix series)  
All the canon lore and recogniseable characterisations for canon characters within this fic are based off the classic movie and its associated 80´s book lore and/or Legends of the Dark Crystal (2007). *Also referencing Brian Froud´s Creation Myths (2011)concerning the fate of two skeksis right after the splitting*
> 
> ****Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, all Dark Crystal canon characters and events etc. are the property of their respective owners (Brian Froud, Jim Henson and everyone who worked in the making of the Dark Crystal). The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author (SkekLa) is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.****


End file.
